Getting My Act Together

"It just feels like every time I try to get my act together, something comes along and gets in the way." —me, a few days ago

My life often feels like a cycle alternating between complacency and struggle to change. I find an area of my life that I want to work on, and I work on it intensely for a short while. When I get to a place where my attempts at improving have become habitual and I'm happy with the progress, I back off and allow myself to cruise for a bit. But inevitably, I either revert back to my previous habits or find a new area where I want to improve, and the cycle starts all over again.

This is probably healthy. It's better to try to improve and have some success than to simply never try at all. The long-term result of this cycle is a slow but steady self-improvement, and for that I am very thankful. But sometimes, this cycle really bothers me. You see, starting the process of positive change takes a lot of energy because it is always met with resistance. Inertia—the law of physics that says objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless enacted upon by a strong outward —can be easily applied to people's habits as well. And mustering the energy to overcome that resistance is hard, especially when you think you've finally overcome it only to find that there's more resistance ahead of you.

I'm in the early stages of a period of self-improvement right now. I'm trying to do better in a few different areas, and one of them is money. I've never been particularly good at saving, budgeting, and managing my finances, so I decided to take steps towards improving that area of my life. I started building my credit. I changed to a bank that would better serve me and help me manage my funds. I even implemented a (very basic) budget that has done wonders for me. I started to feel really good about this decision, like I was making real progress. And then the resistance showed up.

Unexpected costs, the temptation to spend what little I had saved on some shiny new piece of tech, and frustration with the resources I was working with began to sneak in. And along with them came the question that I always have to face when I'm trying to improve: Does this even really matter? Is there any way I can possibly do better in this area, and even if I could, would it be worth it? Why even try?

I'm not going to lie; this resistance has been very discouraging to me lately. And I imagine that you've faced similar resistance when trying to improve an area of your life. Whether it's health, finances, education, your faith, relationships, or something else, there is always initial resistance we try to make a positive change. It makes us want to give up. Sometimes it feels like our only option is to stop trying to improve. But we can't. Because fortunately, there is more to the story than just the resistance.

Because in the midst of resistance, there is grace. There are people and situations in our lives that enable us to continue along the path to improvement. There are cheerleaders who are willing to support us. There are saviors who are willing to help us. There are listeners who are willing to put up with our rants about how unfair the world is. There are strangers who have no idea what we're struggling with but give us the encouragement we need simply by smiling at us on the street. There are Plan Bs to back us up when our Plan As inevitably fail. And there is a God who is willing to love us and guide us into being the people he has called us to be.

Make no mistake: If you try to get better, there will be resistance. But there will also be grace. And for that grace, I am thankful. I am thankful for the grace that God shows me by forgiving me when I fail. I'm thankful for the grace that other people show me through their support. And I'm thankful for the grace that I'm able to show myself when I look back on the small victories and say, "Good job, you'll do even better tomorrow." Because getting better doesn't happen overnight. And sometimes you take a couple of steps back before you can take a few more forward. But with grace, I truly believe that things can and will get better, and I'm trusting in that as I press on through the resistance.

The Trouble with Attachment

It seems like I'm always learning my life lessons from the inside of my car. I once wrote about a time my tire blew, my plans changed, and I learned a valuable lesson about flexibility. Later, I wrote about a time I got stuck in traffic for several hours and learned a lesson about anger. Well, this time my car decided to teach a valuable lesson about attachment, and it did so in the scariest way possible.

I went home to visit my family last month for my brother's birthday and had an amazing time. I got to watch Drew play football (and score a touchdown!), play with Aiden, and have a wonderful dinner with my family. It was my first time to come home all semester, and I couldn't have enjoyed it more. Leaving was really hard to do, but on Sunday afternoon, I said my goodbyes and hit the road.

About an hour into my drive from Greenwood, AR, to Waco, TX, I hit a long patch of Oklahoma road that has no cell phone reception. This used to annoy me, but I've learned to accept it. I now come prepared with pre-downloaded music to listen to so that my jam session doesn't get cut off. When I came to the area on this particular trip, I was listening to a lecture from Suzanne Stabille on the Enneagram (specifically my Enneagram number, five). As I was listening to this lecture, I thought I heard a clinking sound, like something had come off of my car. And then immediately, everything started failing at once.

The first thing to go was the power steering. That's always a sure sign that something is wrong. So as I was driving down a back road in Oklahoma with no cell reception, struggling to painstakingly turn my steering wheel to keep my car on the road, I noticed that the battery light on my dashboard had lit up. At this point, I knew I had to pull over. So I started looking for a driveway to pull into. But my search was cut short by my engine's thermometer, which went from a safe temperature near the bottom of the gauge to that red part at the very top that means, "Shut off your engine now!" in a matter of a few seconds. My poor car couldn't go on any longer. I put on my emergency lights, pulled over to the side of the road, and tried to stop myself from panicking.

It all turned out fine in the end. A nice family let me use their phone, and I called a wrecker to tow me back to Fort Smith. I spent an extra night at home and was back on the road the next day. But what I realized through that experience is that I'm entirely too attached to things. Attached to my physical possessions, like my car. Attached to my view of the way the world should work (for example, the idea that my car should always work correctly). Attached to my schedule and my timeframe and my way of doing things. In that situation, I felt like I was losing all of those things, and it was rather terrifying, but also strangely freeing.

The truth is that my car isn't always going to be there. It isn't always going to work correctly. And it isn't always going to get me to where I want to be at the exact time I want to be there. And that's OK. Those aren't the most important things in life. And rather than reacting to these realizations with fear and dread, I can rather learn to accept them as a part of life and allow myself to become detached from the things that caused these negative feelings in the first place.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be connected to things. I'm very connected to my friends and family, my jobs and school, and my home here in Waco. These are things that are important to me, a part of me, and they should be. But if I convince myself that these things are permanent and never going to change, then I'm setting myself up for heartbreak. There's nothing wrong with connection, only over-attachment. There's nothing wrong with making a plan or holding a certain ideology. The problem comes when we become so attached to those things that we can't imagine our lives without them, and so we are unwilling to even stand the thought of losing them. That's being overly attached, like I was to my car, and it's not healthy.

Everything we know is transient. Nothing we can see, hear, or touch is permanent. And there really isn't any such thing as a sure thing. Maybe those statements seem depressing to you. It's probably a little healthy that they do. But it doesn't have to be a bad thing. Isn't it true that the impermanence of a thing actually adds to its value?

I mean, think about it. I spent more time thinking about and appreciating my car in those hours that I wasn't able to use it than in all the time I've had it. Because confronting its impermanence made me realize its value and how much harder my life is without it. We cherish the moments we have with our loved ones not because they're permanent but because they're special, and we know that they are limited. If a parent believes that his or her child is going to remain a kid forever, he or she is going to miss out on a lot of opportunities for special moments. But if we realize that life is impermanent, that the time we're in will soon be over, then we can truly start to appreciate how special these moment are.

I'm thankful that my car is back in working order. And from here on out, I'm going to try not to take it for granted again. Because it won't be around forever. I learned that truth the hard way. But I also learned that being overly attached to things is a problem for me, and it's something I need to work on. Because ultimately, all this stuff is temporary, and that's OK, because that's what makes it mean so much. So I'm going to grasp the things I love, just not so tightly that I can't let them go. And I'm going to connect in a healthy way—not attach in a destructive way—to the impermanent, transient, temporary, yet beautiful things that make my life what it is.

Life Is Sacred

There is an irony present in our society that absolutely baffles me. On the one hand, we fear death above most everything else. We use euphemisms, distractions, and straight-up denial to protect ourselves from the reality that each of us will one day die. We try to convince ourselves that we are safe and that death is something we do not have to deal with. But on the other hand, we are constantly bombarded by the seeming omnipresence of death in our lives. News media, entertainment, and life itself seem to be intent on forcing us to deal with death head-on. No matter how hard we try to shield ourselves from death, we are reminded all the time that it is real, and that every living thing is headed in that direction.

Lately, it seems that this paradox has come to the forefront in our society. Through a combination of different issues, America today more than ever is being forced to face the reality of death and to decide how we are going to deal with this reality. It seems that our vain attempts at avoiding the subject have finally, utterly failed, and our living rooms, classrooms, sanctuaries, offices, and storefronts (not to mention digital spaces like social media) are now filled with conversations about death. Since this is such a huge issue right now and it is a matter of such great importance, I thought I might contribute my voice to the conversation, not only to help me think through these issues but to share what I think with others in hopes that my reflections may be helpful to someone else.

Even more confusing and troublesome to me than the paradox mentioned above is the utter hypocricy that we employ when trying to appropriately deal with death when it confronts us. I'd like to note that I'm not talking about reactions of individual people to deaths of friends or loved ones, but rather reactions by our society as a whole in response to deaths that make national news headlines. Namely, we try to respond to and minimize death by creating more death. 

Think about it. When terrorists come to our country and kill American citizens, we respond by waging wars against entire nations in an attempt to kill potential terrorists before they get a chance to kill us. When a person commits murder, the reaction of the so-called American justice system is to condemn the murderer to death. And when a developing child threatens the life or quality of life of the mother, we terminate the child, donate the body to science in an attempt to find new ways to combat death, and accept money to compensate for "shipping and storage." This is how we as a society react to death: by creating more death. We're fighting fire with fire and hoping that this will in some way put the fire out.

But here's the reality of the situation: Death will never defeat death. And trying to combat death with more death results in simply that: more death.  This is not only illogical; it is unacceptable.

We will never be able to  confront and respond to death in a healthy way until we first recognize and appreciate the true value of life. I recently came across a term called sonder, and it is one that has become very impactful for me. It refers to the recognition that every other person on the planet has a life just as vivid, complex, and meaningful as one's own. I believe this is the key to understanding the value of life and the first step to appropriately responding to death. If we could see that every person we meet and every person we see has a life that is just as important and central to them as ours is to us, then maybe we could start to see what a tragedy a life cut short truly is.

I'm not saying this is easy, or even that I've truly grasped this concept as well as I should. There are over seven billion people on this planet, and that number alone is difficult enough for the human brain to comprehend. Trying to take the complexity of one's life and multiply it by a number that large is nearly impossible for one to do. But you don't have to try to start that big. Start small. Start with the person you are closest to, maybe your significant other or best friend. Think about how that person perceives life and realize that to them, their life is as central and important as yours is to you. Once you can grasp that, widen the view a little bit. Keep expanding until you can include all the people you like, and then expand even more into people you are neutral toward, and eventually to people you even dislike. Each time you take this step of expanding, you will start to see that the people around you matter just as much as you do, and you'll be well on your way to understanding the value of human life. You might even one day be able to live out Jesus' call to love your enemies (which, obviously, means you aren't going to kill them).

Because the truth is that other people are people too. Your best friend is a person just as much as you are. Your family members, friends, and peers are people just as much as you are. The person you pass on the street is a person just as much as you are. The person you buy your groceries from is a person just as much as you are. Your worst enemy is a person just as much as you are. And as hard as it is to admit, even a terrorist or a murderer is a person—just as much as you are.

In order to live ethical lives and bring about justice in our world, we must understand this basic truth. Other people are still people, even though they are not us. Each person's life matters. Each person's life is precious. Each person's life is a sacred, God-given gift that no one else has the right to take away from them. No person or entity has the right to take another person's life under any circumstances. Period. Life is just too precious for that. 

I understand that this may seem extreme. And I understand that one may be able to come up to exceptions to the rule I've put forth. I recognize that there is such a thing as necessary evil and that death cannot be avoided. However, I would urge each of you to truly, prayerfully consider the value of a human life before you ever even start to decide to condone the taking of one. Because life is precious. It is sacred. And as we consider current issues such as the death penalty, war, abortion, and others, we must remember just how precious life is.

Media As Worship

Being a seminarian, I am often asked the question, "What kind of ministry do you feel called into?" I've heard this question asked countless times and heard every possible answer there is: from lead pastoring to working with youth to parachurch ministry to advocacy to "I have no idea." But the one I offer is one that has not been heard at my seminary before, and so I often get some interesting looks when I say that I feel called into media ministry.

Let me be clear: I have received an overwhelming amount of support from my friends, family, peers, and professors when it comes to pursuing my calling, and I am so very thankful for that. But I know there are those who may still be a little skeptical, and I can understand that as well. Some question whether or not working with computers can really be understood as ministry. Many recognize that it is a type of ministry that churches need, but they think of it more as a volunteer position than as a pastoral job. And there are others who may be on board with media ministry as a vocation but question why someone who wants to work with media would go to seminary.

Now these concerns are legitimate and should be addressed. I can't tackle them all in one blog post, but I wanted to set up this backdrop so that you understand where I'm coming from when I say what I'm about to say. I want to get at the absolute heart of this issue of why I feel called to the ministry I do and why I'm working hard to be the absolute best I can be at it. My main point, and the center of my calling, is this:

I am pursuing a career in media ministry because using my media talents for God is the greatest form of worship I am capable of.

That's right. For me, working with media is a form of worship. And it's not just that. It's the best form of worship I have ever participated in. I feel most connected to God when I'm behind a computer using my skills to glorify him. And I can't think of any better thing to dedicate my career to.

To someone who doesn't worship in this way, it may seem odd for me to consider working with media a form of worship. But I think my media work can be considered worship on a few different levels. 

First of all, working with media can be understood as worship on a wholistic level. For Christians, everything we do should be considered a form of worship. When we go about our days—going to work, talking with friends, taking care of ourselves, even taking our times of leisure—we should see everything we do as a way of giving glory to God. We worship him by living with him as a reality in our lives and being his people in the world. Obviously if worship encompasses everything I do, working with media would be included in that.

But just because everything we do is worship, that doesn't mean everything we do is something that is considered church work. That's the second sense in which my media work can be considered worship. At my church, we have a saying: "Work is worship." We depend on teams of volunteers to make everything happen on Sunday mornings, from greeting to cleaning coffee mugs to reading in service to—yes—even serving on the media team. Anything and everything done for God, his house, and his people, is considered worship in that it supports and furthers the ministry of the church. Media ministry certainly falls under this category.

But there is even yet a deeper sense in which media ministry can be considered worship, and this is the one that is most meaningful to me. Whenever I work with media in a church setting, I feel personally connected with God and his people. I can't exactly explain it, but I have never felt closer to God than I do when I am tucked away in an A/V booth running slides for a worship service. Not only am I praising God through song; I am creating a space in which others can worship with God and connect with him as well. And there is just something about that that makes me feel alive and connected with God in a way that nothing else offers me.

The truth is that media ministry is the highest form of worship I know. Maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense to people, and that's OK. Everyone worships God in his or her own way; that's how he created us. But when he created me, he created me to worship him in this way. And I think that's a pretty compelling reason to dedicate my life to it. I truly believe that God has called me into media ministry, and I am going to pursue that with my whole heart, worshipping God through my media work every step of the way.

---

So now you know just a little bit about my calling and why I feel such a strong desire to work in media ministry. Now I'd like to hear from you. Do you have a strong sense of calling, whether it be in your career, relationships with others, social justice, church involvement, or other areas? If not, how are you actively seeking that calling? Let's talk about it in the comments!

Why I'm Happily Paying for Apple Music

Let's take a trip back in time, shall we? The year is 2008. A 16-year-old version of me sits at his desk typing and clicking away furiously on his HP laptop. His concentration is so intense that hours pass without notice as he continues to type and click, type and click, pause for a sip of some sugary drink that's terrible for him… and then back to typing and clicking. What is this ridiculously good-looking but also terribly naive young man doing? Well, he's perfecting his iTunes library, of course. He's invested hundreds of dollars into his music collection, which consists of CDs, MP3s, t-shirts, stickers, bracelets, posters, and more, all from his favorite bands. He takes pride in showing off his collection to others, and all of his friends think he's cool because he has "like, the best taste in music ever." His music library has become central to his identity. It's what he's known for. And he spends all of his free time keeping up with his favorite bands, discovering new music, and tweaking his iTunes library so that every minute detail is exactly the way he wants it to be.

Fast forward to three months ago, the day before the launch of Apple Music. Now I'm 23 and in seminary. When I check my Timehop and see what I posted back in 2008, I realize that not only was I not as cool as I thought I was; my taste in music wasn't that great, either. But instead of trying to improve or expand it, I've basically let it become stale. Sure, I still keep up with a few of my absolute favorite bands and buy their new albums when they come out. But my passion has disappeared, and my music routine has basically become limited to listening to the same few songs over and over on the rare occasions that I actually feel like listening to music.

Not only that, but my iTunes library is a mess. Some artists are listed multiple times with slightly different spellings or with "featuring so-and-so" at the end. Albums are missing artwork. There's even a song that has a typo in the title. It's been that way for years, and I've never bothered to change it even though I know it would take approximately three seconds to fix. That one misspelled song title is a symbol for my whole approach to my music library at this time: I just don't care about it.

And then, I wake up the next day and find out that Apple Music is live. I have to try it out, not because I'm excited about the service, but because I have a compulsive need to stay up-to-date on every software platform I can get my hands on. The first thing I think is, "Wow, that new Music icon is pretty cool." I tap it, and I immediately realize that Apple Music is so much more than I expected it to be. It's not just another music streaming service. It's a music streaming service that allows me to mix my streaming songs with my iTunes library. It's a music streaming service that already knows exactly what kind of music I love and suggests playlists that mix music I know with music I don't know but will soon come to love. It's a music streaming service that connects me with the artists I love so that I can keep up with everything they're doing while I enjoy their music. The second I experience Apple Music, it's like a switch gets flipped in my head, and I'm that 16-year-old music-obsessed kid all over again.

I spend the rest of the day obsessing over my music library. I fix all the mistakes that I've allowed to slip in over the years, and I even update some of my old album artwork with newer, higher-quality images. I look up every music artist I've ever had any interest in and add their "Intro To…" playlist to my library. As I explore the app, I remember songs I've heard that I loved, artists I've completely forgotten about, and albums I've wanted to buy for years but never could bring myself to shell out the money for. And now all this stuff is accessible to me. As much of it as I want. For free. And I can't get enough.

I listen to music all the time now. I listen to it at least as much as I did when I was 16, if not more. And now, I have the resources to enjoy my favorite music while also expanding my musical horizons through content discovery. I can finally have relevant conversations about current music trends because I have access to every song that's blowing up right now. And I can discover unknown indie artists and share them with my friends, something I loved doing when I was younger. I'm into music so much right now that I bought a brand new set of wireless headphones just so I could listen to my music in more places. I listen in my car, on my bike, when I'm shopping, when I'm cleaning, right after I wake up, right before I go to bed, and all kinds of times in-between.

View fullsize

Wireless headphones make the man.

And that's why I love Apple Music. It gave me the gift of loving music again. As silly as it may sound, it's been really good for me to reconnect with something I used to love so much. No, I'm not going to go 100% evangelistic fanboy on you like I once did. I won't start wearing band t-shirts again and scouring Google for the latest news on my favorite artists. But I am going to be able to enjoy music in a way that is not only fun, but also meaningful. And that's all thanks to Apple Music.

So tomorrow, when my free trial runs out, I'm going to happily pay the $10 required to stay subscribed to the service. Not only am I supporting artists and musicians. I'm supporting a wonderful music streaming service that has already done me a lot of good, and I'm giving myself even more opportunity to be encouraged, enlivened, and even edified by it more in the future. Apple Music is well worth the money to me, and I hope you'll give it a chance as well. Maybe it won't impact you as powerfully as it has me, but maybe it will. You'll never know unless you give it a chance. Who knows? You may end up three months from now in the same place I am now, handing Apple $10 a month for access to their music streaming service and smiling as you do it.

---

Well, that's my review of Apple Music! Thank you for checking it out. I know it's a little different than my usual reviews, but I wanted to be completely honest with you about why I love Apple Music so much, and that meant getting a little sentimental. There are obviously other, more objective, reasons why I love the service, and I'd be happy to discuss them with you in the comments, through my contact page, or on social media. I'd also like to know: Have you tried Apple Music? If you have, will you stick with it once the trial runs out? And if you haven't, why not? Let me know in the comments! I would absolutely love to hear from you.